Pastor Rick Warren’s youngest son, Matthew commits suicide

(MSNBC) The youngest son of Rick Warren, author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” has committed suicide, the evangelical pastor said in a letter to members of his church on Saturday.

Pastor Rick Warren speaks at the Elton John AIDS Foundation and UNAIDS breakfast, July 24, 2012, in Washington. (Michael Kovac/Getty Images for The Elton John AIDS Foundation)

Matthew Warren, the youngest son of Warren and his wife Kay, died after a long struggle with mental illness, according to the statement from Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif. The church asked for “everyone to join us in praying for the entire Warren family” on Saturday.

“At 27 years of age, Matthew was an incredibly kind, gentle and compassionate young man whose sweet spirit was encouragement and comfort to many,” Saddleback Church said in the statement. “Unfortunately, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal thoughts.”

Warren wrote about his son’s death in an emotional letter to his church, calling his son “an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man.”

“No words can express the anguished grief we feel right now,” Warren wrote in the letter. “He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He’d then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them.”

“In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided,” Warren wrote to church members. “Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.”

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